


In This World And The Next (I'll Find You)

by cecilia095



Category: New Girl
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Christmas, F/M, Secret Santa, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-18 02:22:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13090398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilia095/pseuds/cecilia095
Summary: "We've hung out twice and I've already picked out our wedding song. Do you likeCome Away With Meby Norah Jones?""I kind of want my wedding song to be theJurassic Parkscore, but... Yeah. I guess."AU.





	In This World And The Next (I'll Find You)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cool-nick-miller](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=cool-nick-miller).



> For my wonderful Secret Santa, [cool-nick-miller](https://cool-nick-miller.tumblr.com/). Merry Christmas!!
> 
> I (secretly) asked her what her dream fanfic was on anon the other day and she really enjoys pre-Ness Ness (as do I, duh) with a little angst and sexual tension thrown in there. I came across this soulmate prompt before I even knew what I was going to gift for SS but I _knew_ I had to gift this to her. I was SO inspired by all of the Ness love on her blog and knew that I had to craft this so perfectly. Sometimes, I feel like my fics don't include enough of the small Ness moments/buildup, so I wanted to make sure this one was different.
> 
> This little fic was SO fun to create, and I hope you enjoy it, [cool-nick-miller](https://cool-nick-miller.tumblr.com/)! (And everyone else that reads my things, too.)
> 
> Merry Christmas and a very happy holiday to ALL of you. You all make my days brighter. I hope this fic can make yours a little brighter, too. :')
> 
> (Oh. And [this](http://silentpeaches.tumblr.com/post/125291322610/soulmate-au-story-ideas) was the prompt this fic is based on. I always like to link back to them because I definitely did not come up with this idea on my own!)

“My clock was _not_ on zero before.”

“Before _what_?”

“Before… I don’t know! I haven’t looked at it in weeks but I would’ve noticed if it looked like _that_.”

Jess’s head is her hands and Cece is just standing there all judgy, biting the inside of her cheek.

The Soulmate Clock is a… Well… it’s a clock, but it’s not _just_ a clock. Everyone has one, and everyone’s secretly scared of it counting down to 0000:00:00:00, mostly because all the mystery is gone forever once it does.

Jess’s clock was never so close to 0000:00:00:00 before - not close enough that she ever stopped to think, “ _Okay soulmate, I’m ready for you now!_ ”

She kind of thought it’d happen like everyone else’s did: The clock would read something like “0001:23:59:59” and they’d already be so head-over-heels they’d just...know it was bound to happen.

“If you met your soulmate and you hated him,” Cece starts, “it’s totally okay.”

“I would’ve _known_ . I would’ve remembered meeting him! It’s _me_ , Cece. I cry over other people’s love stories like… three times a week. I have no freakin’ idea who it is. I think my clock is broken.”

—

She brings it to Sid at the clock shop, and he looks at her like she’s insane.

“The Soulmate Clock,” he says, “does not _break_.”

Jess just gulps.

“You got a broken watch, kid? Those break.”

She shakes her head, grabs her clock back from Sid, and makes a mental note to leave him a really crappy review on Yelp.

—

Jess retraces her steps, and then she thinks of every person she’s ever met and tells Cece why no, they are _not_ her soulmate.

“Robby could be it, y’know,” Cece says matter-of-factly, and Jess hates that Cece’s so casual about this whole thing.

Jess thinks about Robby for a second. They kissed once at a birthday party, but that was over a year ago - and also a very lame, very forgettable kiss.

“No.” She shakes her head, and Cece looks disappointed - mostly because she’s all out of guys Jess knows. “It’s not him.”

She thinks about all the other guys she knows and crosses each of them off of her mental list.

“Schmidt?” Cece bites her lip. “What about him?”

Jess scoffs. “Oh please. I know you’re both waiting for your clocks to strike zero at the same time.”

Cece gets all red, but she doesn’t fight Jess on that. “We...connected a few times. Doesn’t mean anything.”

“If by ‘ _connected_ ’ you mean: ‘had sex at four of Jess’s birthday parties’ then, yeah, you definitely  _connected_.”

Cece rolls her eyes, and then she blurts out, “Then it’s Nick.”

Nick. Nick Miller. “Please,” Jess says quickly, thinking about Nick Miller. She knows him because he works at the bar Cece works at, and he helps them carry their groceries up four flights of stairs when the elevator's broken because they live in the same building, and whatever. He’s decent, he looks showered and groomed _sometimes_ , and he’s never given Jess a reason to not like him, but he’s not the reason her soulmate clock is set to 0000:00:00:00 right now. No way.

—

Jess goes on about her life and forgets all about her soulmate clock. Sometimes it beeps like it’s trying to tell her, “JESS! YOUR SOULMATE! HE’S WAITING!”, but when it does that, she just shoves it in that tacky footstool she bought at a garage sale a few months ago and ignores it until the beeping stops.

—

Cece’s working the day shift one Friday, and the bar is unusually quiet because none of the regulars are off of work and ready to get drunk yet. It’s just Jess, Sid from the clock shop, and this girl Jess saw Schmidt make out by the jukebox with to make Cece jealous this one time.

“Just a glass of rosè?” Cece frowns and looks disappointed, but Jess is insistent. “C’mon, do a shot with me. I mean, we’ve been up for what...an entire day? What’s a little more of a buzz?”

“I thought the clock would shut itself up,” Jess says, and she looks sorry, but she didn’t sleep either, and she teaches rabid middle schoolers for a living. “I should just break it.”

“Ummm…” There’s a sound of disappointment and judgment coming from her left, and it takes Jess a second to recognize the voice. “You don’t just throw away a soulmate clock, dude.”

“Nick, right?” She pretends not to know his name, because chicks at bars in movies do that, and it’s kind of cool. “Butt out, _dude_.”

“Can’t. Why would you throw away your clock? Bad breakup?”

Cece slides over an overfilled wine glass to her best friend and then walks over to the other side of the bar and refills Sid’s beer, leaving Jess alone with Nick.

“I’ve been there. I almost smashed my clock into pieces after Caroline dumped me but then I never would’ve met Angie.”

Jess purses her lips at him. “Aww. Is Angie your wife? I had no idea you were married.”

“Oh, no, I’m not.” He nods at her, then takes a swig of his beer. “Angie ended up being this stripper who left me in the middle of the woods at some cabin, but it was fun while it lasted. Believe it or not, that’s not the first time a stripper left me alone in the woods!”

Jess raises her eyebrows mid-sip. “I believe it.”

There’s a minute of silence between them, and then Jess just has to ask, “Hey, do - do you know of anyone who’s clock might’ve broken?”

Nick looks like he’s in deep thought, and then he takes another - long - sip of beer. “My friend Schmidt - you know Schmidt. His ex-girlfriend Elizabeth’s clock turned to zero days, zero hours, zero minutes, and zero seconds the night they lost their virginity to each other, but his never did.”

“So Elizabeth’s clock was broken?”

“Um, not exactly. I just think she was ready for a soulmate and he wasn’t. His clock _still_ hasn’t gone to zero and Elizabeth’s just… stayed there. She’s married now, though. I think she might be pregnant with her first kid, too, I don’t know. Schmidt made us delete her off of all social media in a fit of rage.”

“Wait… That can happen?”, Jess asks, intrigued.

Nick folds his hands on top of the bar, and he just stares at her like she’s a ghost. “Soulmates are _weird_ , Jessica.”

—

Jess doesn’t go to the bar for a few weeks, but she does hook up with this new teacher at the school.

His name is Ryan Geauxinue. He’s from England, he’s dreamy as hell, and he’s probably years younger than she is. They meet in the supply closet next to the gym a few times, and it’s always fun.

“Hey.” She blurts out mid-kiss, and Ryan wiggles his hand from under her blouse and just looks at her. “Do - do they have soulmate clocks where you’re from?”

Ryan laughs under his breath, and he stares at her with those dreamy eyes - as dreamy as eyes can be in, well, a dark supply closet. “We do. Mine says I’ve got six-hundred days to go. You ready for five-hundred and ninety-nine days in this janitor’s closet?”

Jess, because she’s always been honest, bites down on her lip and goes, “I don’t think so, Ryan. That’s a _long_ time.”

They don’t even acknowledge each other in the teacher’s lounge after that.

—

Nick asks Cece to drop by his apartment after work for a drink, and she begs Jess to come with.

“No thanks. Have fun, you semi-functioning alcoholics. I’ll be here knitting a quilt for my sister.”

“They won’t let you sneak that into the rehab Abby is in, but nice try.” Cece’s strapping her heels on and reaches a hand out for Jess’s, tugging her off of the couch. “Come _onnnn_. Why don’t you ever want to have fun with me?!”

Jess huffs, sitting back down on top of her half-knitted quilt. “I don’t know, because drinking crappy beer with Nick from the bar isn’t my idea of fun?”

“Just _come_ ,” Cece begs one more time, so Jess does.

She’s three beers in. It’s she and Cece and Nick and Schmidt, and then the guys’ other roommate, Winston comes home from work and he and his girlfriend Aly crack open a beer and join them.

Everyone’s just kind of bullshitting, but it’s nice. It’s been awhile since Jess had a group of people she could just sit in a room and bullshit with, and Cece’s a good friend. She’s not that friend who’s like, “Okay, they’re _my_ friends, but you can borrow them for a few sentences of a conversation. If they start to like you more than me we’re leaving, though!” She _wants_ these guys to like Jess; she wants Jess to get tipsy and talkative and be just as comfortable as she always is.

“Ceec,” she whispers after Beer Number Five. Cece strokes Jess’s back and asks if she wants to go. “No. I just wanted to say that I love you.”

Cece leans into Jess and kisses her cheek, and her kiss smells like crappy beer and this lipstick she’s been wearing out lately. “I love you too, kiddo.”

Nick stands up, his hands in his pockets, and he points to the fridge. “Someone wanna help me get more snacks? Aly?”

Aly wiggles into Winston and shakes her head. “No way. I’m too tipsy to pour pretzels into a bowl. Take the new girl."

Nick’s eyes widen, and then he summons Jess. She awkwardly stands up and goes, “I - I can pour some pretzels into a bowl”, and Nick smiles at her. “Great.”

He shows her around the kitchen, and she laughs because he’s pointing out things like, “Dish towel… an erotic note Schmidt got from his coworker that he makes us keep on the fridge… a bowl of oranges - You like oranges, Jessica?”

“Y-You can call me Jess,” she says, leaning against the countertop, watching him grab a bowl from one of the cabinets.

“Why? I like Jessica just fine.”

She doesn’t argue, just grabs the pretzel bag off of the counter and tells Nick to hold the bowl still.

“You know…”, he says, holding the bowl as steady as a drunk person can hold a bowl steady. “I always saw you around the bar, around the building, and… I never told you, but you’re different-looking.”

Jess just swallows thickly, setting the bag of pretzels down and staring at him. “Different-looking? Is that what we’re going with?”

“I mean _pretty_ . You’re pretty lookin’, and I like that you’re not afraid to wear weird shit. I mean, you wore _overalls_ to a _bar_.”

“...And? I’d wear those overalls to my own wedding if I could.”

Nick laughs, and Jess ignores the fact that his hand is grazing her wrist. “I just like the way you look, Jessica, and I thought I should tell you, but now I realize I just sound like a drunk idiot, so let’s - let’s get back to our friends and forget about this, okay?”

—

“How did you know Melissa was it for you? Like, how did you know that your clock would strike zero and it’d wouldn’t have been someone else, someone totally different?”

Sadie’s been one of Jess’s friends for years, but she never really asked her anything about she and her wife, Melissa. She always just assumed, like: They met, they fell in love, their clocks matched.

“Let’s wait until I’m _out_ of your vagina before we talk about anything sappy,” Sadie jokes. She’s Jess’s friend first, gynecologist second.

Jess pulls her legs out of the stirrups and sits up, smoothing out her paper gown.

“Okay...” Sadie takes a deep breath. “I met Melissa sixty-four days before my clock hit zero, and her clock was at seventy-eight days. I spent sixty-four days just… loving her. I didn’t worry about my clock being ahead of hers. The rule of the soulmate clock is that sometimes, they don’t match to the second, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t meant to be.”

“So Melissa’s clock was just behind because it took her fourteen more days to be ready?”

“Oh, she was a _huge_ slut in college, so I’d say so.”

“So what you’re saying is… just, be with the person and all the rest will just happen?”

“Jess…”, Sadie says, ripping off her gloves and grabbing her friend’s hands in her own. “What I’m saying is I don’t care about soulmates, or the number of days. I just care about the person. I just care about how much I love Melissa, and I love her so damn much. My clock could’ve been at zero ten years before Melissa’s and I still would’ve loved her and fought for her just the same.”

—

Schmidt throws his twenty-eighth birthday at the bar. Cece bartends, because it “was her shift anyway”, but everyone knows she wants to make sure it runs smoothly for Schmidt, because he’ll be a total drama queen if it doesn’t.

Two shots in, Schmidt leans over the bar and grabs Cece’s hand. “Thank you for this.”

“It was my shift anyway,” she (inevitably) says, draping a damp bar rag over her shoulder. “Go party, you weirdo.”

“I just - I just wanted to say that I don’t care if my clock says I still have five-hundred and seventy-two days to go. You are it for me, Cece. I love you and our future biracial child. 'Ruth' if she’s a girl; I don’t have any boy names. Keep pouring, Cecelia. I’ll wait for you.”

“Schmidt... You’re _wasted_ , and that’s sad because I gave you the smallest Jell-O shots in the whole batch. But I’d never have a kid named ‘Ruth’, man. I’m not giving birth to an eighty-nine year old.”

Schmidt’s embarrassed he even said anything, so he finds the nearest person to him - Jess, it’s always Jess - and starts tearing up, grabbing onto a piece of her hair and using it as a tissue.

“Thank God I keep dry shampoo in my purse,” Jess says, and then she swivels in her chair and faces Schmidt. “‘Ruth’? That’s the best you could come up with?”

“The psychic Winston goes to said my future daughter’s name is, one-thousand percent, going to be Ruth. Blame him, not me.”

“I’m not surprised Winston has a go-to psychic, he totally seems like the type. Also, I think what you said to Cece was _supposed_ to be nice, but you were just really drunk and rambling. Do you - do you love her?” Jess is sincere. She’s _Jess_. She loves love, even if it doesn’t always love her back.

Schmidt looks over at the bar to see if Cece’s looking at him and Jess - she’s not - and then he nods fervently. “I do. Love her. We tried this thing a few times and it never worked. I think I was too selfish, and one time I made her dress up as Harley Quinn and do me in a Starbucks bathroom, so I get it. I can be an idiot. But I love her. Everytime I think about someone else potentially making her happy, I want to stick my face underneath my Keurig and just - just let it burn off all of my skin.”

Jess winces and grabs one of Schmidt’s hands. “That’s excessive, man. And also _very_ gory. Like, I’m concerned for you. Do you have a therapist?”

He nods. “Her name is Fawn Moscato and she’s the _worst_. She spent our last session quoting episodes of _Parks and Recreation_ at me.”

“Oooh! I love _Parks_! Is your favorite episode the one where Little Sebastian dies, too?”

Schmidt looks at Jess like she has three heads and wrinkles his nose in disgust. “I don’t watch. I can’t support Democratic comedies." We waves a hand dismissively at her. "Look, Jess, thank you for taking the time to talk to me. You’re pretty enough to have gotten at least like, _two_ phone numbers by now. Go on, kid. It's a big bar out there."

—

The elevator isn’t working, and Jess thinks she can fix it by humming a song and playing the ‘up’ and ‘down’ buttons like a piano.

“That won’t work, although it's strangely cute. You gotta… Here.”

It’s Nick. She didn’t even see him leave Schmidt’s party. He licks his thumb and digs it into the ‘up’ button until the doors open. “There ‘ya go.”

“Thanks.” She cant even feel her legs. Too much drunk dancing with Aly and Winston and one of Schmidt’s older, uncoordinated cousins. “I thought you’d still be at the party.”

“It kind of died down. It’s just Schmidt - who is definitely passed out in the bathroom with a Sharpie dick drawn on his cheek -, Cece and Winston. I think those two are cleaning it up as much as they need to so it looks decent enough for my boss tomorrow.”

“So… as trashed as it always looks?” Jess jokes.

“Exactly.” Nick pockets his hands and makes a comment about the elevator going _really_ slow.

“It’s like the universe wanted to trap us in here together,” Jess blurts out, and Nick just widens his eyes at her and leans up against the mirrored wall. Wrong thing to say? Crazy thing to say? “Sorry,” she quickly apologizes. “I don’t want to be stuck in an elevator all night with you. As nice as you are, I’m too drunk to stand up straight.”

“I saw you funneling blueberry vodka out of Aly’s boobs before. Was that fun?”

Jess scrunches her nose. “Kind of. Makes up for the college lesbian phase I never had.”

“You never had a college lesbian phase?! That’s it. Get out of this elevator right now. We can’t associate.”

“Please. Did _you_ have a college lesbian phase?” She doesn't even know what she's saying.

Nick rolls with it, though. “As a matter of fact, I did. I owned Birkenstocks and had hair longer than yours. Oh, and I wrote really crappy songs for girls on my guitar.”

Jess leans her head back and laughs, points her index finger at him. “ _Definitely_ a lesbian phase.”

“This is my floor. I - I’ll - What the heck. I’m not gonna leave you drunk and alone on an elevator at four in the morning. Do you wanna come hang back at my place until Cece gets home?”

Jess is taken aback by that, because she’s hung out in elevators drunk and alone _many_ times before, but she doesn’t tell Nick how therapeutic that is for her. (One time, she even knit a scarf in one to get away from Cece and this guy she was seeing for two-and-a-half weeks because they legitimately did not leave the apartment and it reeked of sex.)

She agrees to go back to Nick’s, and before she knows it, they’re on the couch of Apartment 4D and he convinces her to drink a glass of some wine he has in the fridge. “You already started, why stop?”

She takes the wine glass to her mouth and takes a sip, ignoring that it tastes like it was just in there for weeks, totally uncapped. She’s drunk, she’s hanging out with someone after a party instead of sneaking out early to go put on a face mask and a pajama set, and she actually doesn’t hate his company.

Nick grabs a beer for himself and sits on the other end. “Want a rubber band?”

Jess sets her wine glass down and laughs. “I’m sorry? _A rubber band_?”

“For - for your hair,” he says, and he snaps a rubber band against his wrist. “Throw it up in one of those bun things, get comfy, relax.”

“They’re not bun things, they’re just buns, but that’s - that’s nice of you. Do you always keep those on hand?”

“I deal with calming drunk girls down for a living. They’re always screaming about losing their rubber band things.”

Jess leans back and lets herself get comfy, polishing off her wine and forgetting it tastes super old and flat after Glass Number Two.

“Can I ask you something?” She says out of the blue, and she’s only getting deeper because Nick’s getting her drunker. Before this, they were talking about how nice it is that Sesame Street decided to include an autistic character, or something.

Nick nods. “Anything. Except related to numbers, or how to properly install appliances, or how to tie a tie. Don’t ask me that crap.”

“It’s about your soulmate clock.”

—

Jess finds out that Nick’s soulmate clock says three-hundred and something days, and that’s a year, and even though she’s feeling twirly, feeling _something_ … something _different_ , as she sits in Nick’s living room with him in the middle of the night, there’s no way she wants to wait three-hundred days to get her heartbroken.

He hugs her goodnight and asks her if she’s sure she wants to go. “It’s so late and I have blankets. Lots of ‘em. You can sleep in my bed, I don’t mind sleeping on the couch. Ignore the crumbs, it’s just Cheez Doodles.”

“It’s okay.” Jess gulps, and she’s short with him, and she hates herself for being short with him because he didn’t do anything wrong; he’s just being a decent human being and offering his bed up to a drunk girl he’s hung out with like...twice.

“Okay. I won’t fight ‘ya on it, but just make sure you get home safe.”

“It’s not a far drive,” she jokes, and then she walks out of his apartment and cries up against the elevator wall, for no real reason.

—

Jess wakes up at noon - very hungover, very cranky, craving greasy eggs and burnt toast - and Cece’s at the kitchen table. So is Schmidt.

“Dirty J!” Schmidt greets her, a little too loud for her (hungover) liking. “You kissed me last night.”

“What?! I did?!”

“No she didn’t. No you didn't.” Cece slaps Schmidt on the arm. “You pecked him on the cheek when he gave you the umbrella from his mojito. That’s all.”

“Oh.”

“It was a tender, loving kiss, and I _enjoyed it_ ,” Schmidt defends.

“Shut up. What’s up, babe? You never sleep this late,” Cece points out, looking at the clock on the stove that says 12:13.

“I was up until like, six.”

“So was I,” Schmidt interjects. “Well, knocked out by about a dozen mojitos, but I woke up at six o’clock in my own piss.”

Jess pretends to gag. “Awesome.”

“I thought you left the party at three,” Cece says. “Wait. You totally went home with someone. Was it that doctor who kept begging you for your number? He was _cuuuuute_.”

“That’s Sam Sweeney. He has a blog, and I absolutely love him,” Schmidt says.

“Not Sam. Nick.” Cece and Schmidt don’t even say anything. “Like, your roommate,” she points at Schmidt, “your coworker-slash-drinking buddy,” she points at Cece. “That Nick.”

“Oh my _God_ , you and Nicholas fornicated!”

“Just say ‘sex’, you weirdo, and no. He just invited me up to your guys’ apartment for a few drinks. We just hung out and talked, and honestly? I didn’t hate it.”

Cece looks proud of her, and Schmidt looks disgusted.

“This wasn’t in the plan, Jess. You and Nick can’t be together. Winston’s psychic says his first wife will be called ‘Maria’.”

“It probably will, because I won’t be Nick’s first wife. We just had a few drinks, a great conversation, and I fell in love with the _idea_ of him for like, three seconds, but it won’t work.” She looks down at the floor, and then she looks back over to Cece and Schmidt. “His soulmate clock is nowhere _near_ where my soulmate clock is.”

Obviously Cece knows about Jess's clock, but now Schmidt’s curious. “Three-hundred-and-ninety-three days, about… sixteen-ish hours. Why? Where’s yours at?”

Jess gulps, stares at Cece, and then she holds up her index finger and tells them she’ll be right back. She races into her bedroom and into the closet, lifting the lid off of her footstool and grabbing the clock out.

“Here.”

She sets it down on the table and slides it over to Schmidt, and he reacts like he’s that kid in the _Willy Wonka_ movie who just found the last golden ticket in his candy bar. “Holy…”

“I know. Zero zero zero zero, zero zero, zero zero, zero zero. I don’t even know how it’s possible. My stomach hurts when I even look at that thing.”

Schmidt waves his hands frantically and pushes the soulmate clock away from him. “Screw the clock! Do you like Nick? I’ll talk to him for you - I’ll tell him to get his crap together so his clock can get to zero faster. I’ll put him on a plant-based diet, we’ll throw out his Garbage Pail Kids cards, I’ll get him a job at my office, I’ll -“

“Talk to him for _what_ , Schmidt? I don’t even think he likes me, he was just being nice. And drunk.”

“Can I just say something, and it’s _not_ “I told you so” or anything shitty like that,” Cece says. “I just want to say that it doesn’t _matter_ what his clock says, Jess. Maybe you just found him sooner than he found you. Maybe it’ll get to zero way quicker now that he knows you exist. Maybe it won’t. Who cares! Do you like him?”

Jess folds her arms underneath her chest uncomfortably, and then she shrugs. “I don’t - Even if I do, please, _please_ don’t try to do anything about it, you guys. Besides, I’m not about to let the most dysfunctional, maybe-couple in Los Angeles play Cupid for me.”

—

One half of the most dysfunctional, maybe-couple in Los Angeles listens. She just stops mentioning Jess’s soulmate clock all together, talks about how she doesn’t even look at her own anymore, and then takes Jess for frozen yogurt and tells her to get whatever toppings she wants, even the rainbow cookies.

The _other_ half, though…

“So.” He sets a bottle of beer down in front of Nick and ignores the fact that he pushes it away. “Did you have fun at my party? Why did you leave without your favor? Don’t worry, I put it on your nightstand for you.”

“I left without my favor because I don’t need a damn picture of you in a cheesy little frame, Schmidt. I know what you look like, because I live with you - unfortunately.”

“The frame was customized. Yours says, ‘IT’S WINE O’CLOCK!’.” Schmidt opens up his arms dramatically.

“Oh, really?! Then it’s definitely going in the garbage, dude.” Nick looks at the beer that Schmidt is sliding back over to him across the dining room table. “What, man? I don’t feel like drinking. That party killed me. I’m living sober from now on.”

Schmidt lifts an eyebrow and tilts his head. “Oh yeah? Great! Until when, Tuesday?”

“Wednesday, because I’m workin’ a shift and can’t get through it without tequila, so…”

“You’re the dumbest boy.”

“I’m not a boy, _you’re_ a boy.”

“Oh yeah? Did you put on pants yesterday?” Schmidt asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Maybe… Okay. No.”

“So. What do you think about Cece’s friend?” Subtle, Schmidt. Way to go.

Nick squints at him and goes, “Nadia? She’s okay. She once told me I looked like if a Gingerbread Man cookie came to life, but I still like her a decent amount."

"You," Schmidt starts, "are a moron. I was talking about the friend you invited back to our place and got all _boozed up_. Did you get in her pants? She looked very sexed-up this morning, but keep that between you and I."

Nick starts to widen his eyes. " _Jess_? Dude, I only invited Jess over here because you morons were nowhere to be found and I felt bad that she was all alone."

"I'm  _sure_ that's the only reason you lured Jess into our apartment, Nicholas."

"I didn't  _lure_  anyone anywhere. You make me sound like a serial killer from _Dateline_ , man. I just asked her to come by and she -  _not by force_ \- said yes. We had a few drinks, we talked, and she's totally awesome. I didn't expect someone who wears more polka dots than my grandma to be that cool, but she is. And then she ran out of here."

Schmidt thinks he knows why, but he waits to mention it.

"Wait, is - is she telling people I lured her in here, man?"

"What? No! I just... Okay, can you keep a secret?", Schmidt asks in this quiet voice as if they're not the only two in the apartment.

"Dude, did we just meet? You  _know_ I can't. My back sweats and I start to stutter and get super nervous and then I blurt it out to whoever'll listen," Nick tells him.

"Right. I  _still_ don't forgive you for telling Winston that I matched with his girlfriend on Tinder before they got serious. He ignored my calls for a month!"

"Shouldn't have told me," Nick says with a shrug. "And you shouldn't tell me what you're about to tell me because I won't be able to keep that secret eith - Wait. Is it about Jess?"

Schmidt laughs sarcastically and goes, "You're  _weak_."

"And you're dumb for taunting me! It's definitely about Jess. Wait, are she and Cece, like, hooking up?"

"In one of my better dreams, yes. No! You dummy. I'm serious about not saying a word. I saw her clock, man."

Nick's confused, so he doesn't say anything. 

"Her  _clock_. Like, her soulmate clock."

Nick gulps, but it's not like he should care about it. He barely knows Jess, really. It was one night. One weird, booze-filled,  _really_ good night. 

"Say something, and turn around. If your back is all sweaty I will drown you in the shower. I will."

"You're ridiculous." Nick turns around. No back sweat. "S-So why are you telling me this, man? What? Does she have a soulmate?"

Schmidt doesn't say anything, just bites the inside of his cheek and has these suspicious eyes on, looking back and forth from Nick to the ground, Nick to the ground.

"Okay, so... She has a soulmate, that's cool. It's years before any of us fuck-ups will find ours."

"Nicholas, what is your clock on?"

Nick thinks about his own clock. He likes to pretend he doesn't give a shit about it, but that's definitely a lie. After Caroline, he checked it obsessively - like, six to ten times an  _hour_ -, making sure it didn't suddenly go to zero, that his soulmate didn't make the dumbest decision ever by letting him go. Months passed, and it still said like, six-hundred-and-something days, and he only left Caroline a few drunk voice mails about it.

"Your clock is at three-hundred-and-ninety-two days, and I know because I check it for you every day."

Nick rolls his eyes at that. " _Why_ , man? Why?"

Schmidt looks offended and yells, "BECAUSE I CARE ABOUT YOUR WELL-BEING, YOUR HAPPINESS, YOUR HEALTH, AND OUR FUTURE WIVES NEED TO BE BEST FRIENDS BECAUSE I KNOW OF  _MANY_ DOUBLE DATE SPOTS IN DOWNTOWN L.A. AND I WILL  _NOT_ LET US MISS OUT ON OPPORTUNITY!"

"Dude, what are you trying to say?"

Schmidt lowers his voice and looks Nick in the eyes. "I'm trying to say that if you stopped being a miserable bag of crap for once in your life, your soulmate clock would set to zero, too."

—

Jess wishes soulmate clocks didn't just count backwards. Like, they messed up and  _thought_ you had a soulmate when you really didn't, and went from zero to like... two-hundred. Two-hundred is good. Two-hundred is enough time to not get blindsided by a love you don't even know about. Maybe two-thousand. It'll stop hurting at two-thousand.

It's been a week and three days since she's even seen Nick, until now. He's at the mailboxes downstairs and the doorman buzzed her down about a package.

"Jess?!" He sounds way too excited to see her, and she just wants to throw a garbage bag over her head and cry. She can't do this. She can't think of Nick as anything but...  _Nick_.

"Hi." Her hands are pocketed in her dress, and she bends down to grab her package, but he says, "Lemme help 'ya, it's heavy."

"I have a gym membership that I use like, three times a month, so. I can lift it just fine. Thank you."

"Are we cool?", he says after she insists she can handle the package that's half as tall as she is. "What did you order, a fifth grader?"

Jess laughs. "A punching bag, actually."

Nick looks surprised. "Really?"

"No. A new vacuum. Cece's such a slob."

"I can't hate on her. I'm the slob of our place. Schmidt enjoys cleaning up after me, though, and I don't question it. So, hey, are we?"

Jess squints and shrugs her shoulders. "Are we  _what_?"

"Cool. Are we cool? You haven't talked to me since you came over after Schmidt's party and I just wanted to make sure I didn't do anything to 'ya. I don't," he swallows thickly, shaking his head, "I didn't want to hurt you, if - if I did."

Jess bites down on her bottom lip and tells him, "What could you have possibly done to me? It's my own fault. I - I get this idea in my head and when it doesn't go my way I get bummed out. I have to stop doing that."

Nick inches in closer to her, so close that she can feel his breath on her when he takes a deep one. "Doing what?"

"We've hung out twice and I've already picked out our wedding song. Do you like  _Come Away With Me_ by Norah Jones?"

"I kind of want my wedding song to be the  _Jurassic Park_ score, but... Yeah. I guess."

He doesn't even question her crazy, and she's suspicious, but she keeps talking to him because it's just so easy to. "I didn't expect to feel anything toward you, but I do, and I - I'm someone who can't just... not say how she feels. I _feel_. A lot! And I wish I could keep my big mouth shut and just get over things but I - That's not me. So do you... I know your clock is not..."

Nick takes this long breath and really, really looks at her, and then, "I'm not the person. I - I mean I like you, you're cool and sweet and you don't remember this but you complimented my sunglasses when you first moved into the building and it made me feel really good. I was on the way to the trash to throw 'em out because Schmidt paid me three-hundred bucks to."

"So you - You don't want this?"

"Jess." He shakes his head and looks really, truly sorry. "I don't want anything, I - I'm sorry. I'm just so bad at all of this and I don't want to screw you up."

—

"MEN," she starts, "CAN _DISAPPEAR_."

"Well...", Cece sets down her phone onto the coffee table. "I guess after Schmidt replies to my sext, then yeah, they can."

"Ew. Is that even fun? I thought sexting was something rebellious pre-teens did in their rooms late at night because their parents stopped checking their cell phones."

Cece shrugs. "A penis pic a day helps Little Cece sleep with ease."

"I hate you. And Schmidt. I think he talked to Nick, Cece."

"Ugh, really? I told him to butt out."

"I don't know." Jess puts her head in her hands and lets out a breath of frustration. "I ran into Nick at the mailbox and he was  _so_ weird, and then I asked him a ton of stupid questions like if he wanted me, and  _us_ , and he basically said 'no' and now I want to hide out at my dad's house in Portland or die. Either or, really."

"Wait." Cece looks at Jess in disbelief, hopping off of the couch and running over to throw an arm around her best friend's shoulder. "Are you serious? Are you okay?"

"How do I say, ' _hell no_ '?"

"Babe, I'm so sorry. Just - Just shake it off and remember that someone  _is_ out there, and they're probably looking for you right now."

—

"I can't stop thinking about Jess."

"I can't stop thinking about what an  _idiot_ you are."

"Cece, c'mon," he pleas, handing her a dirty beer mug to wipe down. "Me being with her would hurt her even more. I suck! I'm not ready to own a pet _goldf_ _ish_ let alone fall in love."

"So you  _think_." She grabs the mug from him roughly and just rolls her eyes. Cece's always been this way; you hurt her best friend, she'll hurt you. Mostly with words and eye rolls, but still. "What's your soulmate clock on now, huh Nick?"

—

He races to his desk when he gets home and turns the clock around, expecting to see three-hundred-and-eighty-one days, because he still sucks.

"Holy  _shit_."

—

He doesn't tell anyone besides Schmidt, because Schmidt doesn't have a blabber mouth or a sweaty back.

"So your clock is on ten days. So freakin' what.  _I_ remember  _some_ _one_  - I won't name names but he's  _very_ handsome and always right - telling you that if you let it happen, the clock would do it's own thing."

"I." Nick doesn't even know where to start. "It has to be her, it _has_ to be Jess."

—

There's a Christmas party on Christmas Eve Eve at the bar, and Cece bribes Jess with booze and a dress she lets her borrow to get her to go.

"You don't even have to look at him," she bargains, and Jess slips into Cece's old dress, takes a pre-party shot of vodka at the apartment, and grabs Cece's hand, leading her into the elevator.

When they get there, Jess finds Winston and Aly and hangs out with them in a booth in the corner. Cece's not working the party or anything, but Jess thinks she's somewhere in the back room getting it on with the guy dressed in a really tight Santa suit. (Schmidt, _of course_ it's Schmidt.)

"Jessica." It's Nick, and he's hovering right over their booth, because why would Jess ever truly get to enjoy herself without having to worry about something coming along and ruining her night? "Can we talk? I got you a glass of pink wine."

It's her kryptonite, and she has no idea how he knows. (Even though she just... looks like someone who chooses pink wine, every time.)

Aly and Winston both nod for her to go with Nick, probably just so they can make out in the corner without Jess being a third wheel.

She steps out of the booth, fixing the straps on her dress as they fall down, because this dress was Cece's and Jess doesn't have the boobs to fill it out as well as Cece does. "Fine," she says, kind of coldly, "we can talk, but I need to get back to my friends."

Nick laughs and points out the fact that it took Winston and Aly three seconds to start hooking up, spread across Jess's old seat. "Jessica, I just want to apologize to 'ya. Can you please take this glass of wine and talk to me? We - We can step outside, or we can hang out right at the bar; whatever you want."

"What I  _want_ is... Well, first," she pauses, taking the glass of wine out of Nick's hands and lifting it up to her mouth for a long, long sip. "Second, I just want to know why you're so scared of everything. I know you've had your heart broken because you talk about it like it just happened, but damn it, you don't think I have?"

"I didn't say that, Jess." He stares at her like he wants to fix whatever he did to her. He grabs onto her shoulder and reiterates. "I think you've had your heart broken too, and I hate that. I - I don't want to be just another guy who breaks your heart, Jess, but you - You're too good for me."

"How?" She takes another sip of her wine and squeezes herself into a less-crowded corner of the bar. "You barely even know me."

"I hung out with you in my apartment for three hours and I know you're too good for me. And anyone."

"So you're just going to be alone forever because you're scared of messing up?" Jess shakes her head and laughs bitterly, right into her wine glass. "People mess up, but they get past it. That's what being together is. That's what letting someone else love you is. I think, if you took the time to let yourself be loved, Nick, you'd be happy. You'd be _so_ happy, because you're - You deserve love. But go ahead; hide from it because you're  _scared_. Can I get back to my friends now, please?"

She doesn't even care that Winston and Aly are making out in their booth, or that she'd rather be at home knitting her dad's Christmas scarf than in this crowded, sticky bar. 

"Yeah, Jess, you can -"

She starts to walk away, not even looking back at him, but Nick tugs her back over and pulls her into him swiftly. She blinks, and then his lips are locked on hers, his hand scooping her forearm, like if he lets go she'll leave.

His lips linger on hers for a second, and she lets him. They both let out this quick breath and look at each other.

"My clock reset itself. I - I have ten days, and I'd be stupid to not spend those ten days, and - and every day after with 'ya, Jess. I'm not hiding, I'm not running, I'm - I'm all in."


End file.
